“I don’t understand,” Rome said, sinking down on the bed next to her. Ella had taken a shower and washed the night club off of herself before she put on an oversized T-shirt and joined him in the bedroom. He had been pacing as she recounted most of the night’s events to him, but now, when she told him that she’d given Parker Thompson permission to call her, he was confused. She couldn’t blame him. She was a little confused herself. “What exactly is bringing a third guy into this supposed to accomplish? I’m not willing to be part of one of those weird reverse harem trendy things people have going on now.”
Waiting backstage in a green room was an experience Rome had dreamt about for a long time as a young boy. He used to watch the late night talk shows, but not to be entertained or hear the newest political jokes. He watched in order to study the process. How did actors behave when they weren’t on set? How did they move? How did they speak? How did a regular person sit in a chair on a stage in front of an audience and give off the impression that they were somehow larger than life--more important than the hundreds of other people in the room--so that they could entice viewers to rush out to the box office to see their next film?
Ella sat on the couch, her mouth hanging open, the remote in her hand as she prepared to pause the recording of Rome’s interview with Cliff and watch it again. She’d already been through it three times; once, the night before, when she’d watched it on its initial airing. This morning, she’d watched it two more times. Why she was obsessed with watching her husband lie to the world about Henry Caron’s intentions, she wasn’t sure, but she wanted to make sure she had every nuance of the conversation engrained in her mind because Henry had called her the night before, leaving a scathing message on her voicemail. She had yet to call him back, but when she did, she wanted to make sure she was sufficiently angry at all of the details Henry was surely
“I just don’t know what I’m going to do.” Henry took another drink, draining his glass. Was that his second or third? Juliet had lost track. It was hard enough pretending she was paying attention to him at all when all she wanted to do was jump back into her waiting car and head back home to Rome.The smell of him on her skin had washed off in the shower, but she could still feel his touch lingering there. If he had intended to sabotage her attempts at convincing Henry that she was interested in
Thinking about all of the other places in the world he’d rather be than headed to the set to film movie number two in his ten part litany of horrible movies had given Rome something to do as he’d ridden in from the solace of his beautiful beach home back to the sound stage where he was all set to make a film about zombie unicorns. While his explanation about why he’d decided to make the awful robot movie had gotten him a lot of positive press, and left Henry trying to make excuses as to why he’d chosen that particular script, there wasn’t going to be any saving himself from whatever torrent of bad reviews this piece of shit movie resulted in. Not unless Juliet’s plan worked, and he was able to manage to crawl out from underneath this mess. He
Ella was up to her ears in work, putting out fires and making sure everything was ready for the Montage art show, which was coming up quickly. While having an alter ego to help her come out of her shell while she was in public was great, Juliet couldn’t do anything to help with the show itself. Great assistants had done a lot to move things along, but there were certain things she could only do herself, like decide where to move a few items that hadn’t fit in their initially planned location for one reason or another or find a priceless painting that had been mishandled by the airlines despite the artist taking all of the precautions necessary when sending it.
The second show from Montage, Inc. was an even larger success than the first one had been. It was clear, not only from the excessively large crowd, but also from the bids registering, that Juliet’s team had done a tremendous job securing pieces the art world was thrilled to have a chance to acquire and had invited the right people. While Juliet had expected there to be quite the turnout, she was shocked to see that nearly every single person of the five hundred or so that had received invitations was present and accounted for. Even more had been invited to make bids over the telephone or via the new app her team had created. She could see what each piece was going for, though it took a while to update so it wasn’t exact. Currently, it looked like the piece that had b
Finding Lloyd Sinders wasn’t difficult. A crowd of older businessmen formed around the man wherever he went. Despite the fact that Mr. Sinders didn’t go out much these days, or perhaps because of it, he always attracted a group of admirers who wanted to learn from him, to be associated with him. That was the case now, too. Rome watched for a few moments as Ella’s dad told a story, getting a few chuckles out of the others. He held a flute of champagne in one hand, which seemed out of place. Sinders was more of a hard liquor man, but since Juliet wasn’t serving whiskey at her art show, the current beverage was about the best Sinders could do.
Schmoozing the filthy rich wasn’t something even Juliet enjoyed (Ella despised it) but it was part of her job as owner and chief executive officer of Montage, so she put her head down and did it. So far, it had made her a lot of money. After her first show, months earlier, she didn’t think it was possible to bring in much more revenue at one event, but she’d been very wrong. Even without the Vinune, she was going to make three times more money than she had at the first show, in profits alone. She was sitting in a good position to be able to buy Henry’s entire company outright if she wanted to.